Show Notes: Prada Spring Summer 2024
Get ready to hear Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons talk a lot about craft for Spring Summer 2024.
When: Sept 21
Where: The cavernous Deposito hall of Fondazione Prada, the cultural hub located on the southern fringe of Milan. The complex was designed by architecture firm OMA – a frequent Prada collaborator – and was once the site of a gin distillery in the early 20th century. Today, it houses spaces for art exhibitions and a cinema, and also serves as a venue for Prada's runway shows during Fashion Week. For the women's Spring Summer 2024 show, Prada replicated the set of its menswear Spring Summer 2024 show in June – complete with the curtains of slime that oozed from the ceiling.
What: Miuccia Prada and her co-creative director Raf Simons presented one of their most sublime and cohesive collections ever since the two joined forces three years ago. You'd noticed the oft-described "ugly pretty" aesthetic of Prada right away. Clock the fringe skirt hand-studded with metal grommets and the oversized utility caban (yeah workwear!) worn over a viscose fringe shirt and wool shorts, for instance. Meanwhile, the schoolboy shorts, the menswear tailoring, the clash of genres and eras and even the subversive show soundtrack were just some hallmarks of a Raf Simons production.
The takeaway: It's refreshing to hear the brand talking a lot about craft when describing this collection. While artisanal workmanship is a currency that most luxury houses trade on today, Prada has always been more cerebral and conceptual when it comes to its collections. Backstage, Simons acknowledged that “craft isn’t something that gets talked about a lot at Prada" and that they were singing a different tune this time around.
Take a moment to consider the level of skill it would have taken to create the printed viscose fringe seen on the shirts. Ditto the tiny hand-studded crystals that embellished the fringe skirts in the show. "We did not want to philosophise, to propose stories about clothing," Miuccia Prada told The Guardian matter-of-factly. "There is a respect for our work as designers, and the act of making clothes. The clothes say everything".
Special mention also goes to the diaphanous 'Haze' dresses (yes, the brand christened them as such). Made from superfine silk organza and gazar, the frocks looked as if they had trails of smoke behind them as the models paraded down the Deposito. Indeed, they were meant to "challenge the language of classic tailoring", the brand explained in its press notes.
The archives were another important tool in the Prada playbook for this 47-look outing. The collection saw Mrs. Prada reincarnating an important artefact from its annals: a handbag that was designed by her grandfather Mario Prada in 1913. He was known for his deep intellectual curiosity and interest in culture and traversed the globe acquiring souvenirs and objects – think English silver, Austrian handbags, crystal from Bohemia, silks and leathers from Asia. One object that inspired the elder Prada was a mythical figure from the Orient that was turned into a hand-carved fastening of a silk moire handbag from 1913. Mrs. Prada reimagined that historical design in nappa leather and the eco-friendly Re-Nylon fabric for Spring Summer 2024. It was a sweet and sentimental gesture in an IYKYK way.
The things we're eyeing: The ‘Haze’ dress (Looks 2, 3, 28, 29, 30); the 1913-inspired handbags; the silk satin mules with the triangular heels (Looks 2, 3, 6 and 30); the belts with silver fringe (Looks 13, 18, 23 and 44); the Mary-Jane mules with sharply-pointed vamp (Looks 15, 16, 27, 28, 29, 33, 34, 35 and 42; the XL-sized utility jacket (Looks 14, 20 and 21)
The looks: